At around 9am we found a bus and began our trip to Mardin. We got on a large bus heading further east. We ended up sitting across the aisle from this Turkish guy in his mid 30s. He looked curiously at us for a while and then (as always with Turkish people) his curiosity got the best of him. To my surprise, he was able to speak a little in English and we had a very limited conversation (as he knew about as much English as I did Turkish at the time).
Elif watched this interaction but didn't say anything. I am not sure if she was just tired or amused or a combination. When we found out he was a school teacher, her interest was sufficiently peeked and she decided to join in the conversation. This was especially interesting for her because she is majoring in educational psychology at Boğaziçi. In her classes, they talked about teaching conditions in the east, but rarely does anyone get a chance to have the classroom materials come alive like that. It was really neat for her.
She also told me if I had any questions that she would be happy to translate for me if I wanted. This lead to a slight altercation between us because I was hoping for a more literal translation than what she was giving me. We ended up getting into a really big fight and not talking for that day or much during our time together in Van. It was really a shame. Being together on a trip like that for too long tends to take its effect on people. I was curious about the GAP Project (Southeastern Anatolia Project). The project is an interesting yet slightly controversial project spearheaded by the Turkish government to develop the Southeastern region. The teacher had an overall positive view of it, which was interesting to see.
We made our ways up the hills and finally into Mardin (after passing the quote etched into the side of the mountain that said "Happy is the man who can call himself a Turk." Nothing like a little Turkish nationalism in the middle of Kurdistan! The landscape between Urfa and Mardin was very pretty. Elif said it had reminded her a lot of Wyoming. There were many fields, few trees and an occasional small mountain. It's funny that she has seen more of my country than I have and I have seen more of her country than she has.
Upon leaving the small bus area, we deposited our bags with the bus company and we went to tour the Saffron Monastery (Deyrülzafarân Manastırı). Emily had been obsessing about this place since pretty much the beginning of the trip, so she was very happy that we had finally made it. The Saffron Monastery is an important religious place for the Syrian Orthodox Church. What I thought was neat is that the official language is still Aramaic there. All of the people associated with the monastery speak it and all of the signs posted were in Aramaic and of course Turkish. Luckily, our tour guide did know some English, but he would always speak in Turkish first. Our explanations were shorter and so we were probably not getting the whole picture. We did, however, get to go to the 2nd level (most others were not allowed) and we saw the living quarters of where guests can say. If you are Syrian orthodox, they will house you for free on your travels! I look Syrian Orthodox, right? ;)
The other big attraction of this site is that from the courtyard you can see into Syria. The city of Mardin is quite close to the Syrian border (only a few miles) and it is situated on a large hill (some might even consider it a small mountain) overlooking vast plains. I was surprised by how flat the land was (after all the mountains we had seen). I imagine that some of the landscape we saw would be similar to looking over the Great Plains from the rolling hills before Rocky Mountains (but I don't know this for sure because I have never been to the Rockies). Anyways...it was cool.
After we toured the monastery, we took a taxi cab back to Mardin. We spent the rest of the time walking along the hill and investigating interesting sites, which included another Syrian church (where we were offered some homemade wine) and a mosque. I don't remember many of the other sites. Truthfully, I was not all that impressed with Mardin. It was pretty but it was not my favorite stop on the trip. In all fairness, I will say I was in a sour mood after I exchanged words with Elif and my bad mood may have influenced my perceptions of the city. Perhaps one day I will get the opportunity to go back and give it another chance. It was a very pretty place.
That evening we got in a dolmuş and began our trip to Van via Diyarbakir.
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